Volume
4: The Doorway Papers Series

EVOLUTION OR CREATION?

Abstract:

This Volume
of Doorway Papers is on the subject of Origins, particularly
the origin of the earth, of monotheism, and of man himself.
In dealing with the question of
the age of the earth and how it came into being, four alternative
views are presented with one being discussed in depth ("The
Preparation of the Earth Before Man"). Two Papers show that
the evidence does not support the evolutionary view in
the matter of the origin of religion ("Primitive Monotheism
and the Origin of Polytheism") and in the origin of Man
("Convergence and the Origin of Man"). One Paper ("The
Survival of the UN-fit") demonstrates the irrationality
of the evolutionary faith in the 'survival of the fittest'.
The final Paper, "Is Man an
Animal?" is important because it shows that man is not merely
quantitatively different from all other creatures, but qualitatively
different ‹ these differences are discusssed in 6 chapters.
The conclusion in the last chapter is that man was created a
unique creature because he was to become a "house"
for God Himself to be manifested in the flesh, and that this
Incarnation really demands a uniqueness in the constitution of
man which puts him in a category by himself completely separate
from all other animal forms.

Questions about
the earth's past geological history have sparked conflicting
answers. How old is this earth? Did it evolve by chance ‹
or was it created by God? Is our planet billions of years old
‹ or was it an instantaneous creation of only a few thousand
years ago?
There are four basic alternatives
‹ the purely non-theistic evolutionary view, the theistic
evolutionary view, the creationist view (young earth or flood
geology), and the view explored in this Paper which argues for
that particular form of catastrophism that sees a discontinity
between our present world and "the world that then was"
(2 Peter 3:6), which was disastrously overwhelmed and left a
desolation as described in Genesis 1:2 and then reconstituted
in Genesis 1:3-31.

From Anthropology
comes evidence which clearly indicates that man's religious history
has not been marked by a gradual purification of his faith from
animism to polydemonism to polytheism and finally to a pure monotheism
(as held by evolutionists), but by a trend in the opposite direction,
representing rather degeneration than upward evolution. The second
chapter is more philosophical in an attempt to discover why this
is so: it is an exploration of ideas rather than facts, of implications
of events rather than the events themselves.

It is assumed
(by evolutionists) that similarity of structure is evidence of
ancestry ‹ this is Divergence. Yet the fact is that animals
which are not related DO develop precisely similar structures.
For similar needs and similar environmental pressures act upon
living organisms so that they tend to converge in structural
form. This is Convergence. This Paper presents a summary of the
evidence from the fossil record and the living world, and then
discusses the implications of this established fact upon the
close interaction between form and function, and thus upon genetic
relationships and therefore on man's origin.

This Paper provides
information on observations in Nature where co-operation and
even self-sacrifice are by no means uncommon among animals in
the wild, both between members of a single species and between
members of different species. Thus it is found that the un-fit,
by Darwin's definition, do indeed very often survive. His view
of Nature as a ruthless battleground is quite unrealistic.

While it seems
obvious that man is essentially an animal, the differences are
assumed to be accidental and quantitative only. But in truth
the differences lie rather in the ralm of quality than quantity,
and taken together they constitute an absolute difference. Man
differs from animals in so many subtle ways ‹ anatomically,
physiologically, psychologically, mentally, spiritually ‹
that it no longer is really justified to classify him in the
animal kingdom at all.
He is a creature unlike any other,
not so much because he has certain facultires that are superior
to theirs, but because he is capable of sin and of being redeemed;
which no other animal is. His destiny is different: and his origin
is different. Man is more than an animal by reason of his creation,
yet less than an animal by reason of his Fall. He is, in fact,
unique to which the term 'animal' is not really applicable at
all.
This Paper is a study of man's
assessment of himself apart from revelation, and the final
chapter is a study from revelation of what God intended,
of true Man as seen in the Person of Jesus Christ.